A FOKTNItiHT AT (iAVAKNIK. 



lUl 



Sabbath-da_y's journey into the Cirque and at about 4.30 p.m. it 

 cleared sufficiently for us to do so. As we approached nearer our goal 

 we began to have some idea of what had happened. Across the path 

 were rivulets that ordinarily would not have necessitated even lengthen- 

 ing our usual tread to pass over, but that had become streams to be 

 jumped, and once or twice to be taken at more than one jump, whilst 

 one stream bad become so violent and deep, that it took us a quarter 

 of an hour to find a ford, and even then we suffered more or less in 

 taking it. Hail-stones as large as good-si/ed hen's eggs were lying 

 about by the humlred. The grassy declivities and unevenness of the 

 ground had become most lovely mosaics, the hollows of the ground 

 having become filled with water, partly vain, partly melted hail, the 

 surface of the water being completely packed with hail-stones that had 

 melted vertically but not circumferencially. The centre of the stones 

 was opaque and snowy, the circumference being narrowly of the same 

 texture and colour, whilst the whole of the intervening area was 

 broadly perfectly clear ice. The effect produced was that of most 

 lovely and most wonderful mosaics, in every hollow, some of a con- 

 siderable area. It was indeed a beautiful sight, but the force of the 

 storm was visible all round in shorn off boughs and broken branches 

 that lay about, whilst the nearer we approached the Cirque, the more 

 severe must the storm have been, until in the magic circle itself, 1 

 picked up a hail-stone o\er 3^ inches long by 3 inches broad and 11 

 inches thick, and when it is remembered that I did not find it until 

 after two hours from the time it had fallen a.nd that it had melted 

 greatly, again in the vertical line, we realised that originally that stone 

 must have been larger than a cricket ball, or at least fully as large. 

 Had such a stone struck a human being on the head it must have been 

 death. Mr. -Jones sent a model of this to the Koyal Meterological 

 Society whose Secretary informed him that it was a ■' record." On 

 the Spanish side the storm M^as much worse, the stones being described 

 by Mr. Wheeler, of Eastbourne, as usually the size of golf balls, whilst 

 a very large percentage were as large as cricket l)alls, causing the 

 death of many scores of sheep, and of lietween twenty and thirty 

 cattle. 



We bad arranged to go to Argeles-Gazost the next day fit route for 

 iiome and we were not sorry to do so. There our pleasant party broke 

 up, Mr. .Jones went back to Mende to take Krchia tieoriilas (an account 

 of which has already appeared nnte p. 121), after staying on a couple 

 of days 1 returned direct home, whilst Mr. Wainwright stayed a day 

 or two longer to " dipterise." It may be well to briefly enumerate my 

 captures in the two days. The first day I made my way into the 

 main valley and went up a side valley and returned direct over the 

 hills to Argeles, en route, really it was on the main road, I took a fine 

 /-". ixnlaliriiis, something between the type and var. fiesthanielii, and in 

 the hills a perfectly fresh /'. iiiachami fell to my net. (.'alias edtt.sa was 

 not uncommon, and Uryus pafthiu also, but this latter species had seen 

 its best days. Le/itosia sinai>is was fairly plentiful, as was also both /'. 

 iiiei/aera and /'. aetjeria. I also took one /'. iiiaera and a single ab. 

 (itlrasia the worse for wear. f'.Jnrtiiui was quite fresh, and I netted 

 several nice females but not of the /lisindla form, at least onl}- one is 

 inclined in that direction. Two nice specimens of Sahhrin {LodJat/iia) 

 seniinibeLlu fell Captives to me among some long grass, and fi-om the 



